The Fuse
by Tazlet
Summary: Duncan confronts Methos in the aftermath of "Forgive Us Our Trespasses."
1. The Fuse

_November 11__th_

Rain had fallen steadily all day, saturating the ancient stones of Paris until the effluvia of medieval markets and the blood of ancient massacres combined with the reek of internal combustion. The smell pervaded the air of every street that Methos tramped on his way home. Although he had avoided the parade route, he still hadn't been able to avoid seeing poppies, purple, white and red, floating in the gutters.

It had been almost a century.

As he went through the mundane ritual of preparing for bed—brushing his teeth, screwing the top back on the toothpaste—he caught himself staring at his face in the cabinet mirror. A long-headed man stared back at him—nose like the blade of an ax stared back. Hazel eyes. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth that twisted easily at the ironies of his life—_Moth? Maddws? Methos? What's your name today?_ He touched the glass wondering when it was, exactly, that he'd first seen himself in something other than a still pool of water—five thousand years? Five thousand years ago his features had still been mapped with intricate blue spirals. Four thousand years ago they had been fading, but a man with bright blue eyes had been able to trace them with his finger. They had been vanished for centuries the day he'd given Cassandra to Kronos.

Methos snapped off the light and turned away.

Dropping his clothes on top of the heap of books next to the futon, he climbed in and turned off the reading light, burying his head beneath the duvet. It was too early for sleep, but what did he need to do—unpack the newest crate at Shakespeare and Co.? Go and apologize to Keane: _Nothing personal, I just couldn't let you take his head. _Go rant at MacLeod:_ You moralizing prig,_ _how dare you judge me? I abjured an old love for you, MacLeod, the last trace of who I was in a time gone out of mind. It was a long time ago—I hope you never know how long—but I broke my word. You can't possibly understand what that means to me._

Brooding was an indulgence. He despised himself for it.

Kronos was dead. All of the Horsemen were dead. His friendship with MacLeod had been shattered; the re-forged truce between them too fragile to trust. So what? Losing a few illusions would only increase the odds of MacLeod's survival. It was no solace for Methos. There was a fissure in his soul and he doubted he'd ever feel whole again.

Aware of the soft linen sliding beneath him, and speaking of indulgence, he thought of bringing himself off, imagining it was MacLeod's generous hand relearning the intimacies of his body. But under loathing lurked shame and shame would raise more ghosts.

Sleep was welcome when it came—however briefly.

The banging woke him. He responded to the sense of another immortal's presence by feeling for his sword. The rain had stopped. Moonlight cast a distorted human shadow on the door blinds. _Amanda...if that's you..._

"Pierson, open the door! I know you're in there! We have to talk." MacLeod was outside in full imperial bellow, punctuating his words with blows to the doorframe.

Hoping the man would take a hint, Methos didn't move until the glass was in danger of breaking. Then he threw the duvet aside and got up. Despite the fear knotting his stomach and making his hands shake, he jerked the door open and thrust.

The point of the weapons stopped just short of MacLeod's chin. MacLeod jumped back and landed off balance in a puddle. "_Jaesus_, Methos!" he said. "I came to apologize."

"Fuck off." Methos jabbed again to make the point. "I'm sick of every immortal in Paris having a turn waking me up."

"Amanda warned me you'd be cranky." MacLeod made a conciliatory gesture, displaying the bottle in his right hand. "I've brought a peace offering."

Methos kept his sword level. The man could stand there with his feet wet and take root as far as he was concerned. Damned if he was going to put up for an expensive bottle of scotch, just because it was in MacLeod's hand. But the moonlight had embroidered MacLeod's head and shoulders all over with tiny silver beads. Methos wanted to howl, to beg protection from all the now forgotten powers that had once sped lost souls to their damnation. Sighing, he said, "What's so important it can't wait until tomorrow?"

"I'm leaving Paris tomorrow. I couldn't sleep without talking to you."

"And if Duncan MacLeod can't sleep, why should anybody else?"

"Please, Methos. It's cold, I'm wet and anybody could happen by." MacLeod's eyes dropped to where Methos's hands gripped the hilt of the sword. He presented the bottle again. "The Lagavulin."

"I suspect an element of self-interest there." Methos said, but he lowered his weapon and stepped aside. "Quidquid id est, timeo Damaos et dona ferentis." _Whatever it may be, I still fear the Greeks when they come bearing gifts._

"I expect you do," MacLeod said, brushing by, spattering his legs with cold water. Methos saw there was a poppy pinned to his lapel.

He followed MacLeod inside. "Pour me some of that while I get dressed."

"You don't need to on my account. MacLeod headed for the kitchen,

"Oh, sod off. And don't drip on the floor."

"Anything else?"

"Put some ice in it."

"Sassenach." There was a shudder in MacLeod's voice.

Methos found the bed lamp and began rummaging for his jeans in the pile of clothing.

He'd finished straightening the bedclothes when MacLeod came padding back bare foot with the wet cuffs of his slacks rolled about his ankles. His hair was curling on the shoulders of his open dress shirt. In the warm air he smelled of wet wool, cigar smoke and a faint tang of Bay Rum, as though he had just come from a dinner party. Ice clicked against crystal as he handed over a glass. "It's barbaric to use good whisky like that."

"I thought we had established that I am a barbarian." Methos took a sip, savoring the moody, peat-smoke taste. "Nice.

"It's the sixteen."

"When it comes to conciliation, any year will do."

"Do you always answer the door stark naked?" MacLeod smiled.

"Amanda should have told you that."

"It must have slipped her mind. She's had a lot on it since the other night."

"Has she resolved that little problem with the police inspector?"

"As a matter of fact she left Paris this evening—it was that or jail." There was deep affection in MacLeod's voice and a smile on his lips.

"Pray I'm never on the receiving end of one of her rescue efforts."

"She's creative, our Amanda, not to mention larcenous."

Methos shook his head and took another sip. _A farewell dinner would explain the clothes. Are you going to follow her?_ He sat down on the futon, trying to control the brew of emotion that had gripped him from the moment he'd heard MacLeod's voice at the door. MacLeod kept on smiling.

"Oh for God's sake, will you stop looming and just light? Between tourists, re-enactors and idiots on sentimental journeys, I've had a hell of a day at the bookstore."

"Sorry." MacLeod found a seat on the one of the low leather chairs. "I don't mean to loom."

"You loom, you hover and you hang about like the fog on the Grampians." The bastard was still smiling. Methos could see the glint of his teeth. _Stop that._ "What do you want? There's this great new contraption called the telephone, ever heard of it?"

"I didn't know you'd ever been in the Grampians." Now MacLeod's voice was flat. "There's an awful lot about you that I don't know."

"Get to it, or go."

MacLeod took another sip and leaned forward. "I can't leave things the way they are between us. You tried to help me with Keane—"

Methos cut him off. "I couldn't see you getting yourself killed in some pathetic panegyric to guilt."

"We have to work this out."

"In the middle of the night? What's wrong with next Thursday?" _I am not ready for this._

"When I realized what day it was…tonight just seemed appropriate," MacLeod stood up and began to pace. "I talked to Joe—"

"Phone the _International Herald Tribune_ while you were at it?" Methos interrupted, feeling irrationally betrayed, but unsure of by whom. "You know, the really great thing about the Watchers is they're a constructive outlet for voyeurs, gossips, and busybodies with nothing better to do."

"Or for arrogant, pusillanimous assholes to hide in," MacLeod shot back.

"Touché." Methos mimed a sword touch. "Did you think that up with both hands?" The corners of MacLeod's mouth twitched. "Next thing you know, you'll want to be paid."

"You can be really obnoxious," MacLeod said.

"It's an art."

"Keep practicing, you've almost got it perfected." Methos closed his eyes and ducked his head in an abbreviated bow. "Now, you listen to me—when Cassandra showed up in Seacouver, Joe did everything but turn cartwheels trying to get me to talk to you. I don't know why, but he cares about you."

"So, I owe him for this?" Methos waved his glass. "Fixing you up is how he gets his rocks off." He was going to start laughing any second at the look of outrage on MacLeod's face. There was a putrid kind of satisfaction in reaching for the cruelest things he could think to say. "You know the Vietcong blew off his balls as well as his legs."

"Stop it! before you go any further!"

Suddenly MacLeod was kneeling in front of him, his fingers digging into Methos's shoulders with bruising force, shaking. Whisky and ice soaked his jeans. He dropped the glass, wrenched himself out of MacLeod's grip, and pushed his face up close. "Let me go! Haven't you figured out, after everything that's happened, I'm not what either of you want me to be."

"Yes." MacLeod lifted his hands, sitting back on his heels. "Finally. That's why I had to talk to Joe. Why I came here tonight"

The frame of the futon was digging into his back. He wanted to get away but getting up would have been clumsy and obvious. _Hell of a time to start worrying about your dignity, Maddws._ Why was that name coming to mind tonight? He groped for his glass. It was empty.

"Joe's a good man. That was unforgivable," he said. "I'm sorry."

MacLeod's expression changed from disgust to something disturbingly like a cat with a trapped mouse. The man was too close. There was a disturbing maleness under the smoke and Bay Rum.

"Apologize to Joe. He seems capable of forgiving you anything." MacLeod reached out as though he would have liked to frame Methos's face with his hands. "Are you up on your classics?"

"Try me."

"'Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nove, sero te amavi.'"MacLeod said each word with a schoolboy's deliberate pronunciation.

"That's St. Augustine you're mangling," Methos objected.

"That's right. Tell me what it means."

"'Too late, I came…'" He'd automatically begun to translating when, suddenly sick to his stomach, he spotted the trap. He tried to rise, but MacLeod was gripping his shoulders and there was nowhere to go.

"Finish it."

He closed his eyes and started again. "'Too late I came to love thee…'" _The end of the world shouldn't be so impossible; we all come to it sooner or later._ "'I came to love thee, beauty, both so ancient and so young.'" He was clinging to MacLeod's wrists and let his head drop until it rested against MacLeod's chest. "'Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam,'"he finished softly.

"Yes." MacLeod approved of the top of his head. "'And behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.'"

MacLeod's arms were around him, holding his broken parts together, turning his face up and kissing him. He held still for only a few seconds before falling back on the futon and pulling MacLeod down with him. MacLeod's arms snaked under his back, pulling them higher on the bed.

He clung to the man, craving his body as thirsty man craves water, spreading his legs to bring their groins tightly together. Through the fabric of his jeans, he could feel MacLeod's familiar hardness against his erection. MacLeod dug his fingers into his ass, grinding into him, reinforcing the contact. He thought he was crying MacLeod's name and he may have cried another name as well but it didn't matter, he couldn't hear through the torrent of noise in his brain.

MacLeod must have heard him, though. His lips pressed against Methos's eyelids and cheeks. Hands stroked the sides of Methos's face, like fire where they touched him. Methos turned into the hand and kissed the palm, tasting salt. MacLeod's familiar thumb slipped into his mouth and then went away, but before he could cry out, a tongue took its place. Wet and alive, it claimed and colonized him, assuring him that he wasn't alone.

The need for air broke the kiss and they held fast to each other. MacLeod traced the whorls of his ear with a tongue that left a wet trail behind it while Methos raked his hands up and down MacLeod's back and reveled in the solidity of the body in his arms and thrilled by the strength he felt locked there.

Then he got greedy for the hardness that still pressed against his thigh. It had been too long. He wanted to feel MacLeod measuring their cocks again. He wanted to fuck MacLeod's mouth, that hot tongue wrapped around him. He wanted to swallow MacLeod in turn and suck the life out of him.

He reached for MacLeod's belt, tugging on it when it wouldn't come undone, and pulled up MacLeod's shirt. He pulled too hard and the buttons popped against his belly and they both started laughing until MacLeod collapsed on top of him.

"What?" Methos demanded when he got his breath back and MacLeod was still snorting into the hollow of his throat. "What's so funny, you big haggis walloper?" He gave MacLeod a thump in the ribs. "Move! You weigh a ton."

"'Da mihi castitatem et continetiam.' That's Augustine too." Warm breath exploded against his skin.

"But not now." MacLeod lay giggling on top of him and Methos hit him again. "That's a hint."

"I know." MacLeod levered himself up and ran a finger under the edge of Methos's jaw. "Augustine was lucky; he was only wrestling with temptation."

"How do you know?" Methos found the zipper on MacLeod's slacks, undid it, and slipped his hand inside.

"That's what Paul told me when he was teaching me Latin."

MacLeod hissed as Methos's hand skimmed over the soft cotton that restrained his rigid cock until MacLeod caught his fingers and held them.

"Methos, I never meant things to go this far tonight." MacLeod's voice was as smoky as the malt, but he shifted himself away. "We have to talk first."

"No, we don't." Methos pulled his hand free and squeezed MacLeod's cock to feel it throb. "Besides, you're such a liar." MacLeod didn't say anything, just kept looking at him. The staring was starting to piss him off. "Excuse, me, did I miss something? Do you want to go out and get roses too?"

"Methos, this isn't what I want," MacLeod began.

"I want to get laid, MacLeod." He squeezed again—hard. MacLeod jerked.

"Damn you! I want to know what's going on. If I looked, would I find 'Gilgamesh slept here' tattooed on your ass?"

"Would that be worse than anything else?"

"I don't know. Who couldn't I ask you about?"

"None of your damn business."

"Kronos. Cassandra. Ulysses? Any more god or demons? Heroes? Saints? Famous perverts? Sade? Leonardo? Spinoza? Byron…"

"Stuff it, you provincial son of a bitch! I'm going to finish what you started, and then you get the fuck out of my life."

He caught MacLeod by surprise, shoving him over, not caring particularly how he bruised the other mans body. Methos straddled him and finished ripping the shirt open. The last of the buttons disappeared into the bedclothes. He leaned down and bit MacLeod's mouth, then pushed his tongue in, taking blood deep inside, forcing MacLeod to taste the copper and tin.

When MacLeod screwed his head into the duvet, he took a handful of dark hair and jabbed MacLeod's flanks with his knees. He dragged MacLeod's undershirt high enough to expose the small, brown aureoles of his nipples. When he twisted them they were hot and hard. MacLeod moaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest.

Methos give vent his rage; MacLeod put up a hand, but Methos slapped it away and after the one aborted gesture MacLeod made no attempt to fight him off. He smashed into MacLeod's face and shoulders trying to batter the man senseless. He demolished the undershirt in his need to expose more of MacLeod's flesh, scratching and biting, not caring how much blood stained his sheets. He pulled at the buckle on MacLeod's belt again, but there was a trick to it; it stayed closed and as he fumbled with it he realized he'd lost his erection and he sagged, panting, over MacLeod's torso. Then the maelstrom of shame and fear surged again, and when he began pummeling anew, MacLeod finally reacted, grabbing his fists and trapping them against his sides. He smashed his head brutally on MacLeod's sternum and when he lifted his head again to repeat the blow, MacLeod pulled his arms up behind his back, crossing them, effectively locking Methos in place.

He was trapped with his face pressed against the swell of a hard pectoral muscle and his entire body shaking with the pounding of his heart. The coarse curls under his cheek were wet. He hoped it was with sweat, and not with what was leaking from his eyes. He could feel the bass notes of MacLeod's voice whispering to him. It didn't make any sense until MacLeod changed his grip to a one-handed hold and, with the other, stroked down Methos's sweat-slick back. "You're not quitting on me now, are you?" MacLeod said.

"Let me get my breath back," he said, "then I can carry on hitting you some more."

He felt the rumble of MacLeod's deep laugh as the double-handed grip tightened again. "Then let's stay here for a little while."

"Mac, isn't there someplace you have to be?" Methos wailed.

"No."

"Well, a real friend would walk out and let me slink out of town in abject humiliation."

"Probably." MacLeod shifted beneath him, bumping Methos's chin when he tried to speak. "What did you say?"

"I said, you are such a pain in the arse." Methos tested MacLeod's grip but it was firm. "I have to piss," he announced.

"Later."

"OK, I'm sorry I hit you," he said and flexed his shoulders.

"No, you're not. I had it coming; I missed you and I forgot what a prick you can be." The amusement in MacLeod's voice almost made him cry. "But we still need to talk."

"About my love life? Don't be morbid."

"It's relevant." MacLeod said and shifted again. "Do you remember when we met and you offered me your head?"

"Yes."

"Five thousand years and you couldn't come up with a better idea?"

"We've been through this before, Mac, I'm not Einstein." Methos squirmed in MacLeod's grip in frustration. "Is there really a point to this? I feel like hell, I have to piss, and from my point of view neither one of us smells like a rose."

"Cross your eyes and hold it. The point is, Adam Pierson never had to meet Duncan MacLeod face to face. 'There's this great contraption called the telephone.' Remember? You could have left Paris and disappeared for years. I could have killed Kalas and never have known."

"He'd killed my friend and he wasn't going to stop coming for me once he knew I was alive. I'd been out of the game too long. And it doesn't take Machiavelli to figure out that the safest place for any other immortal is right behind you. You know, you're that good, MacLeod."

"Who's the liar now?" MacLeod said. "What kind of an advantage did it give me that Kalas fought me believing I'd taken your head? It's interesting you mention Machiavelli. With the exception of that day in Seacouver, you slough off every reference to your past with some smart remark. It was Joe who pointed out that everything you do directs attention away from what you really are."

"And what do you think that is?"

"A conniving son of a bitch who's ten times older than I am." MacLeod paused, as though he had to be very clear with his next words. "I'm in love with you." Something began to surge through Methos. "But I feel like I'm falling into a well."

"More like a cesspool." The tidal wave of conflicting feeling was threatening to overwhelm him again.

"Maybe," MacLeod said, "but you said yourself that sometimes you just have to go with your feelings. That first night, the first time that I met you, it felt like a bell tolling deep inside me. I'd never felt a presence like that before. I need to know who you really are and I need to understand about Kronos and I need to understand why this is happening between us."

"What about Kronos?" Perhaps he could deal with that.

"He was very old—that's what his name meant." MacLeod was clearly probing for something.

"His name was _Croiddws._" Methos let his tongue shape his brother's oldest name for the first time in two millennia. "His mother called him after a white raven she saw the day she found him. _Kronos_…was a joke, later." He flexed his shoulders again but MacLeod's handclasp didn't loosen; any struggle he'd make to free himself would be painful.

He lifted his head as far as he could and looked around the room. There were people in the shadows, men and women cavorting through the figures of a dance. Maddws stood in the circle and watched as they moved illuminated by firelight, in a complicated pattern in and out of the tryllons. He heard the rhythm of the painted drums and the piercing notes of the bone flutes, a funeral dance for the dead chief.

A young man approached him out of the darkness, the fire glossing his skin, his blue eyes glittering. He danced in front of Maddws, kicking and leaping, holding out his hands, beckoning him to join the dance. And Maddws rose and followed him into the dance, into the night, out into the fields beyond the circles where the grass was soft and sweet smelling.

He came back to himself with his arms free, cradled on MacLeod's broad chest. MacLeod must have recognized his surrender and released him. "It was a long time ago," he said.

"Tell me why he called _you_ the survivor."

"He was psychic as well as psychotic?" he said. Truth can sound like sarcasm and slip by, but MacLeod heard something in his voice and tensed. His arms tightened in comfort. "Mac, I'll answer your questions, but, you've got to let me up. It's getting urgent."

"No shit!" MacLeod said. I've been lying on your hilt of your sword for the past ten minutes and I think it's left a permanent dent in my kidney. I'll let you go if you give me your word you won't climb out the bathroom window." It was MacLeod's luck to ask for the one thing that would bind him.

"You have it."

MacLeod opened his arms and Methos fled to the sanctuary of the bathroom. After relieving his bladder, he ran the sink full of cold water, took a breath, and plunged his face into it. He came up dripping, found a cloth, soaked it and wiped it over his neck and chest. Then he sat down on the toilet lid, leaning his head on the cool porcelain rim of the sink.

_You must be getting old_, _Methos, letting someone that young outflank you._

_That was the rude and temporary triumph of brute force over intellect_, he told himself. _MacLeod doesn't know what he's doing. _

_That was the triumph of his stiff back over your full bladder. No contest. But if you're not willing to take a chance, run away again, you old fool._

_There's no window…_

MacLeod interrupted his personal colloquy by opening the door and tossing his shoes and the rest of his clothes at him. "Get dressed," he said, "we're going out."

"We are?" He felt slow and stupid as he picked the things off the floor. "Why?"

"Because I'm hungry and the egg in your icebox was laid in the reign of Louis XIII. There's a café a few blocks from here."

"Yeah, I know it." Then Methos recognized the sweater MacLeod was wearing. "That's mine—you'll stretch it out of shape." Actually, it fit MacLeod perfectly.

"I'm not going out naked. Hurry up."

The door was closing when Methos called out, "Mac!"

"What?"

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"Me, too."

"I know. Joe told me."

Outside, the sky had closed in again, canceling the moonlight's promise but the Café des Artistes was only a ten-minute walk. It had gotten colder and the warmth was welcome when they walked inside.

One time or another, he'd patronized the place for a hundred and fifty years. It was so conveniently close to the University that a constantly replenished supply of students and a string of reactionary proprietors had made it all but impervious to change. He liked it. It was dark and old-fashioned with straight wooden booths and a jukebox so old it still played 45s. During the second Great War, young German soldiers had nailed medallions with swastikas to top of the fin de sièclebar. Those were gone, but the bar was still studded with banners and coats of arms from colleges all over the world.

"I like it," MacLeod said, as he slipped into the booth beside Methos.

"The beer's good and M. Gourmont gets his pâté from a cousin in the country." MacLeod's hip gave him a bump. "There's a whole bench over there," he pointed out. "You could have it all to yourself."

"I like it here fine." MacLeod bumped him again. The waitress popped up at his elbow and MacLeod smiled at her and ordered tartines with pâté and beer for them both.

"She never takes my order that fast when I'm by myself," Methos complained. The waitress had not been immune to Hybernian charm.

"It's your personality." MacLeod said.

"There's nothing wrong with my personality."

"Nothing a good beating wouldn't cure," MacLeod agreed.

"It's been tried by experts, MacLeod. I doubt you have any refinements worth mentioning."

Methos turned and put his feet up on the seat between them. Leaning against the wall, he considered MacLeod from behind the barricade of his knees. Tired as he was, he'd only promised to tell the truth, not stop playing with the man's head. "You know a little discipline can be fun with the right person. Tell me your fantasy; do want to tie me up in leather belts? Or do you picture me naked with silk…" MacLeod started to bridle, but not at him.

One of the gaggle of students at the bar had broken away and was approaching, beer in hand, hailing Methos in a flat, midwestern twang. "I thought that was you, Pierson. Remember that course you gave last year? Listen, I've got this great idea I'm going to incorporate into my thesis that'll really frost Green's feminist butt.

"You know the persecution of witches was really a form of medical malpractice litigation. The trials were actually beneficial to society. If you'll help me out with…" The man aimed for the empty bench, still talking. MacLeod stood up and intercepted. "Catch him next semester."

With MacLeod leaning over them, anyone would reconsider their intentions; this one was persistent enough to look at Methos like _who's this asshole_? Without missing a beat, Methos said, "Catch me next semester' I'm on sabbatical. Green's got my courses. Oh, and don't pay any attention to my cousin. He's from Chicago and he's rude."

The would-be scholar considered the empty side of the booth again, reconsidered MacLeod, and diverted to the jukebox.

"I told you, you loom," Methos said, as MacLeod sat back down. "You're getting awfully proprietary."

"Want me to call him back?" MacLeod made a move to stand up.

"God, no. He's one of nature's bores—you know the idiot who 'praises, with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own.'"

"No he's one of those 'persons, who, on spoiling tête-à-têtes insist...I'm sure he won't be missed.'"

"All things considered, that's in the worst possible taste." Methos said. They both started laughing and, for the first time that evening, there were no barriers between them. "Am I supposed to swoon on your bosom now?"

"Later. What was he was on about?"

"Medicine and Sixteenth-Century Law."

"That's your course? I forgot you taught at the University."

"Yeah, I like teaching. Good camouflage and I never make the mistake of confusing a popular theory with facts."

"Miniver Cheevey over there doesn't have any more of a clue than I do." MacLeod picked up the sugar jar, clumsily. It tipped and white cubes spilled over the table. He began constructing a little pyramid. "Methos is a myth."

"Are you into golden showers?" Methos interrupted. "I am. Order a pitcher of beer."

"Shut up," MacLeod said. "Joe has a theory that immortals die when the world changes too much for how long is too long? How much change is too much change? It's a nice theory but here you are, looking like any graduate student who ever made a career out of University. You dropped into my life when you felt like it, left your boots on my counter, beer caps everywhere, slept in my bed…"

"And would again," Methos said, "but, you've been slow on the uptake recently."

"I'm not that slow!" Duncan added another layer to his pyramid. "And you kept interfering. You killed Kristin for me. You almost killed Keane." Methos reached out a finger and toppled MacLeod's little tomb. MacLeod scooped the cubes back into the jar. "The few immortals that I know…knew…who are really old, had pasts that were the history I was taught. Darius—Darius said he killed the oldest immortal at the gates of Paris 1500 years ago…Cassandra's a manipulative bitch but I had no idea how old she is…but I thought I did. You're two thousand years older. The Horsemen couldn't have existed."

"Is it the age difference that bothers you?"

"Don't be simple." Now, MacLeod was angry. "Kalas was looking for a very powerful, very old immortal. It's hard to picture you got up in blue paint and badger fat. Who should he have been looking for? I keep wondering if you engineered his death."

"You are being paranoid."

"I can't help it. Is _Methos_ a joke?"

The waitress, arriving with their order, saved Methos from having to answer. He fell on the food with an appetite that, to his surprise, he didn't have to fake. He demolished his portion and was halfway through the beer when he realized MacLeod had stopped eating. "Are you going to finish that?" He pointed at MacLeod's tartine still thickly smeared with pâté. MacLeod silently handed it over, and signaled to the waitress for a refill.

When the food was gone, Methos returned to his sideways position on the bench. "So, what's the next question?"

"You didn't answer the first one," MacLeod said and, turning so that his body hid the gesture from the room, slid a hand into the warmth between Methos's thighs. "Look, I don't want to fight with you any more tonight. Tell me what _Methos_ means, if you even remember."

The reprieve was too sudden.

_There's a part of me, it's still the heart of me…_

From the jukebox Jackson Browne's voice sang and Methos shuddered as fire washed over him.

…_alive in eternity…_

In the back draft he closed his eyes and said, "_Maddws_; it means hawk."

…_that nothing can kill._

"Don't laugh; we were big on birds in those days."

He looked up to see MacLeod's cocked eyebrow. "I've got nothing to laugh 'Duncan' means 'brown king'." Methos couldn't help it; he dropped his head onto his knees screaming with laughter. "Stop that, you idiot." He couldn't. MacLeod tried again. "Listen to me." But there was no stopping. The laughter came on in spite of everything he could do. Tears and snot ran down his face. MacLeod shielded him with his body, protecting him from the curious, glancing to see what the lunatic was raving about.

"Mac, you're a fool and I'm losing my mind," he said when he finally could.

"If you say so." MacLeod handed him a handkerchief. "Listen to me, I have to go but I'll be back the night after tomorrow. Come back to the barge with me tonight." MacLeod put his hand back on Methos's calf. "We can talk later."

"You're not asking out of sympathy for the poor 'idjit'?" MacLeod's hand was burning his leg again.

"God, no," MacLeod said smiling. "I'd wake up without my head if I was that kind of a fool."

"Then Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod," Methos reached over and tucked his hand in the overcoat on MacLeod's lap to feel the solid promise behind his words. "Your passion overwhelms me." He squeezed. "I can't fight you anymore. Take me home."

"If I wasn't immortal," MacLeod hissed through clenched teeth, "I'd think I'd done something to really regret in another life."

"Not yet." Methos reluctantly took his hand out. "And I'd like to avoid at least one regret in this life. Please, Mac, I am as sick of talking as I am of sleeping without you."

But he had to wait until the waitress was paid before he could slide out of the booth. Sitting on the edge of the bench, looking at MacLeod's suddenly imperturbable face as he counted out change, Methos found it impossible to resist tugging like a child on his coat.

Finally, the waitress was gone.

MacLeod stood up and leaned toward him with feral hunger in his face and whispered, "You'll pay for this, you pest; I promise you won't sleep."

As he got to his feet, Methos took MacLeod's extended hand and they went out into the cold.

They walked toward the Seine, the wind whipping them along part of the parade route he had avoided earlier in the evening. On the boulevards, red, white and blue bunting dripped from the windows and lampposts of the old buildings. The streetlights made jeweled spider webs of the bare branches of the trees that lined the sidewalks.

MacLeod kept his hand tucked in the crook of his arm, the connection warmed him as they walked. It started to rain again. They came to an awning protecting the stairway to a shop door and Methos ducked under it, pulling MacLeod with him.

"It's getting worse. Tell me why we're going to the barge and not to my place?"

"My mattress has springs and that's going to be an advantage for what I have in mind. Anyway, it'll let up any moment." MacLeod said.

At that moment the heavens opened and it began to rain like the first day of the flood.

"Definitely letting up," Methos said. "Forget meteorology as a career, Mac."

MacLeod took him by the shoulders and kissed him. "It can't last long. Besides, Paris is romantic in the rain."

"What's romantic about it? Place was a bloody, stinking swamp three thousand years." The wind blew a drenching blast into their faces. "See? It still is."

MacLeod laughed and climbed up the steps into the doorway of the building, hauling Methos after him.

Methos backed off and punched MacLeod on the shoulder. "Let go! You nearly wrenched my arm off."

"I'm sorry." MacLeod reached for him, pulled him close again and wiped the rain out of his face. "I'm sorry," he repeated, letting his hand cup the side of Methos's face.

"All right, nobody ever died of a little rain," Methos said. "A lot of rain, though," he added, upon reflection, and tucked himself inside MacLeod's coat. Beyond their shelter, the rain came down in torrents. MacLeod leaned back against the tiled wall of the doorway. They waited; eventually it would slack off…or a taxi would come by.

In the meantime, Methos took an animal comfort in MacLeod's substantial body. He passed the time cataloguing the additional smells the man had picked up since they'd left his apartment: beer, dry sweat, and faint traces of musk. And rain. MacLeod smelled like rain. And rain smelled like sex. Methos found he was smiling against MacLeod's neck; he couldn't help himself. "Tell me something."

"Hmmm?" MacLeod's hands were busy on his back.

"Is that a menhir in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

MacLeod snorted. His hands stopped. "Five thousand years of sophomoric humor. You really should be whipped." MacLeod started petting him again. "Anyway, I'd consider myself of a more classical order."

Methos had been exploring, too. He found the pin of the buckle and released MacLeod's belt. Unbuttoned. Unzipped. He slid his hand inside MacLeod's slacks and MacLeod's cock leapt into his hand, the shaft thick and hard, the tip hot and soft as velvet. He rolled his thumb around the flared edge. "Really? Do you call this Doric or Ionic?"

"Corinthian, definitely Corinthian," MacLeod breathed against his temple.

Methos squeezed and stroked. MacLeod's groan was hoarse, but when Methos started to kneel, he stopped him, objecting, "Not here."

"Oh, yes, here and now." Methos sank to his knees, fisting the cock, desperate for the taste, the smell, and the feel of it to fill some part of him. As he began to suck, MacLeod put both hand on the back of his head, whispering, "Please." _There's no mercy here, MacLeod. You don't deserve any. _And no finesse, because the world became the cock in his mouth, slippery with spit, filling him, fucking him over and over, the hands holding him and the voice urging him on. He let go with his hand to take the whole shaft deep into the back of his throat, wrapping his arms around MacLeod's thighs to hold him still. He found a rhythm and kept it up inexorably until with a ragged cry MacLeod was filling his mouth with hot, salty fluid that tasted like the ocean. He swallowed it all, knowing MacLeod could feel his tongue and mouth working against the still-swollen flesh, making him bend double from the stimulation.

With MacLeod bent over him protectively, they rested. As MacLeod' cock shrank and became soft in his mouth, Methos let it go, scraping it gently with the edges of his teeth. He liked the subtle spasms he could feel in MacLeod's body. MacLeod swore at him but Methos pressed his face against the spent genitals in an attitude of contrition. He was so hard and so close to coming himself that he didn't dare move. He didn't have to; MacLeod reached for him. "C'mere, y'wanton bitch," MacLeod said, taking him roughly under the arms and hauling him to his feet.

Upright, he was unable to find his balance until MacLeod wrapped an arm around his waist to support him while he undid his jeans.

"Do it for me, Mac, please. Dear God, do me." Methos closed his eyes, leaned against the encircling arm and pushed into the hand that enveloped him. Pumping into MacLeod's hand, moaning with his mouth against MacLeod's throat, he came, spilling himself in a hot, white rush.

MacLeod caught it all, lifted his hand to Methos's lips, and shoved his fingers slimy with come into Methos's mouth. Then MacLeod kissed him deeply with his tongue to take it all back again.

When MacLeod had swallowed it all, Methos leaned against him. With his head in the curve of MacLeod's shoulder, he let the other man see to the buttoning and tucking, shivering a little with reaction but too enervated and smug to do anything but snuggle. He would have been perfectly content, except his jeans were wet from the knees down.

"Do something for me, Mac," he said.

"I'm afraid to ask." Despite the tone, MacLeod's arms tightened and Methos recognized a promise.

"Next time…" Methos paused to yawn.

"Next time?" MacLeod prompted.

"It's like I'm always on my knees. Next time we do a classical reenactment—you be the grateful slave, I'll be the benevolent god." He could feel MacLeod straighten suddenly. "What—?"

"We have company."

A car that had been moving slowly down the street stopped in front of their building and two policemen got out. "Gentlemen?" one of them called.

"Not again," MacLeod said, stepping in front of Methos. "Yes, officer?"

"MacLeod?"

"Inspector LeBrun."

No question about the chagrin in MacLeod's voice.

"Somebody reported a prowler. Is that Mlle. Amanda behind you?"

"No inspector, just an 'old' friend. We were stopping out of the rain."

"Yes, well, perhaps it would be better if you and your old 'friend' stopped somewhere else. We had a complaint that two men were performing a lewd act in public, but it's easy for people to get confused about what they see, especially on a night like this. I believe they must have been mistaken"

"You're right, Inspector." MacLeod started down the steps. "It was a mistake. Come on, 'old' friend, it looks like the rain has slacked off."

Methos followed MacLeod docilely down the steps and into the pouring rain. He didn't say a word until they got to the barge. Then he left his wet clothes on the bathroom floor, wrapped himself in a blanket and sulked on the sofa until MacLeod produced a sufficiently hot and alcoholic drink.

"I don't believe he really thought we were doing anything untoward." MacLeod said as he handed Methos the steaming mug.

MacLeod may have been trying to put a positive spin on their encounter with the law but Methos noticed that his accent had reverted to an earlier century.

"And I'm Marie of Rumania," he snapped, holding the mug close to inhale the scent of rum and cloves "Associated with an internationally known pervert. MacLeod, he winked at me!"

"Thank ye verra' much." Glowering, MacLeod sat next down to him. "I tried to tell you it was a bad idea."

"Yeah, you fought all the way," Methos agreed. "Ohhhh, please. Don't. Stop," He repeated the words until MacLeod made a face at him.

They sat drinking in companionable silence, letting the liquor warm them, until Methos noticed that MacLeod was smiling to himself.

"What now?"

"Even if I am paranoid, Joe pointed out the risk you're taking being friends with me. I don't hide. Anybody coming for me might not know exactly who you are but they'd be very interested." MacLeod reached over and pinched the end of his nose. "It's not safe, so why?"

"Is that the next question?"

"Could be." MacLeod sipped. "But, it's been quite an evening—don't laugh—and tomorrow…"

"I know, you're going out of town." Methos didn't want to hear it.

"Yes." MacLeod put his cup down and pulled Methos into his arms. "Get someone to take care of the shop and come with me," he said. "There's a seventeenth-century inn in Flanders. I last stayed in 1918 but I hear they still have featherbeds, fireplaces, and mulled wine. How does that sound?"

"Like bedbugs, cold feet, and bad plumbing to me. Mac, this is the only century that was ever worth living in."

"Are you're coming?"

"Yes," Methos sighed. "It is, after all, Armistice Day."

_The end_

3 December 2000


	2. Grave Goods

Title: Grave Goods  
>Author:<br>Written for: lj user=adabsolutely  
>CharactersPairings: MacLeod/Methos  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Warnings: Some things happened once.  
>Author's Note: Quoted poem is William Butler Yeats's 'Brown Penny'<p>

**Grave Goods**

…_he was calling the rain. Banging the spirit drum, steady and slow. Come. Come. The bones rattled in time, the beads danced. The wind was in his face. Come. Come. He could see the rain in the distance over the mountains. It was falling and blowing like horse tails below the clouds. Come. Come. We need you where the grass is withered and the streams are dry. Come to me. The clouds did not move. The rain did not come. A day and a night he stood there. Then his spirit rose and flew like a crow to the west…_

The night had been stressful. What little sleep MacLeod had gotten had been broken by waking frequently to listen for the soft breathy buzz of the man sleeping beside him.

When the phone rang, just after six, MacLeod fumbled it, dropped it, found it again, and said, "Yeah?"

It was Amanda on the other end, spitting mad. "That inspector friend of yours has frozen my accounts. My apartment is being sealed as we speak. If I end up in jail over this, it will be your fault."

No use MacLeod pointing out that she had set him up first…after all, over the long haul what's a little push and shoving between friends? It wasn't as if she'd never gotten him killed. But, in this case, she was right. He still couldn't help yawning into the mouthpiece. Mistake.

"MacLeod! What are you going to do about it?"

"Let me _think_." Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he glanced at the porthole. It was still dark out and still raining. "Do you have your passport?"

"Of course I have my passport. I have three."

"Portugal," he said. "A nice, long vacation in Lisbon until I can get a lawyer on it and get things straightened out. Portugal is beautiful this time of year."

"Money, MacLeod!"

"I'll get you some money. Where do you want to meet?"

That led to a discussion of when; the banks didn't open until nine and, for Amanda, in the immediate absence of weapons, a quick getaway should involve at least three suitcases.

Finally MacLeod put the phone down.

Methos had woken up at some point and was sitting up with his arms across on his knees, listening. "We're going to have a later start than I intended. 'Manda nee…ahg." He was overwhelmed by another yawn. "She needs help."

"The get out of town kind?" Methos rested his chin on his arm. "I don't blame her. Between the police and Keane, a vacation right now sounds like a good idea."

"Keane's not going to come after me. Breakfast?"

"Coffee. You say he won't come after _you_. I agree. But that is not the most rational man I've ever met." Methos lifted his head and stroked his throat. "He and I did _not_ click!"

"Then it's just as well you're coming with me. Right?"

The alarm chose that moment to go off. Methos smacked it into silence and threw himself down in the pillows. "I cannot believe I let you talk me into this!"

"Think about the feather beds and the mulled wine, and try to control your enthusiasm." MacLeod said, and went to look for the coffee press.

The banks didn't open until nine. Initially, he thought they'd swing by Methos's apartment after breakfast, let him run in and grab an overnight bag. Now he was thinking it might be wiser to just get on the road; given the way Methos was scowling at the bulkhead and not give him the opportunity to pull a vanishing act.

His intuition was correct. It had gone eleven by the time they met Amanda at the café in the _Parc des Expositions _rail station. There, he handed over sufficient cash, along with more apologies and a bank draft large enough to keep her comfortably nearly anywhere for a year. A quick kiss for him and a hug for Methos and she was gone. Then, walking back to the car, Methos remembered that he'd left his toothbrush back at the barge. He asked MacLeod to take him home.

"It's running late. We'll stop on the way."

"I just remembered I have an important appointment at the bookstore this afternoon."

"Liar," MacLeod said. "Last night—"

"Last night! Last night was…I've changed my mind. I'm not into sentimental journeys. I told you. All right?"

"No. Not all right." They'd arrived at the car. MacLeod walked around the driver's side and leaned over the roof. "I don't need you and Amanda slipping out of my life on the same day."

Methos leaned over his side of the car, and said, "It wouldn't be happening if you hadn't been such a pain in the ass." Not disavowing any intention of disappearing.

"Thank you very much. Get in the car. Please."

Scowling, Methos looked back at the train station. There was nothing for MacLeod to do but get behind the wheel, and wait. After a minute, the car shook from being struck and Methos got inside. He still had one foot on the ground, though. "What about the toothbrush."

MacLeod started the car. "I'll buy you one. Any color you like."

"Red." Methos pulled his foot in and slammed the door. "Cherry red."

After that, neither of them said anything, as they drove toward the A1and north. MacLeod didn't talk because traffic was heavy and he needed to concentrate; Methos, because he had no intentions of making it easy. In fact, he spent time randomly flipping radio stations until he was certain he wasn't going to get a rise out of MacLeod.

The sky was like a sponge and the rain continued until they were south of Arras. They stopped for a quick lunch at the McDonald's there, and a visit to _Monoprix._ In addition to a toothbrush, Methos tossed toothpaste, disposable razors and shaving cream into the basket, and then he added three boxes of ginger-lemon biscuits, because, as he said, they were impossible to find in Paris. Besides they were expensive and MacLeod was paying.

The traffic eased up past Armentiéres. White signs appeared bearing the names of towns: Calais, Ypres, Ostend, Brugge, Brussels... Off of the highway were green arrow-shaped signs. In French, English and German, they pointed the ways to_ Dunkuerk, Waterloo _and _Passendale..._ Neither man commented; they were familiar with the thrifty habit War has of recycling her ground. The distance between wars is closer in kilometers than years.

In Flanders, they encountered fog rolling in from the sea. Thick and white against the pale sky, it covered the muddy brown fields and erased the horizon. Above it, the steeples of town churches rose in the distance and pale pylons carrying high power lines that marched like giants across the land. The steeples and pylons vanished as they turned down a narrow country road and made their way cautiously past russet brick farmstead walls. Behind the farmhouses, even through the fog, the plowed fields began to look dimpled and rough, as if they could use a good ironing. Once, the headlights picked out a white marble cross, standing by itself by the road in a fenced enclosure. There was a wreath of poppies leaning against the base of it.

"You know maundering over the past isn't healthy."

"How else do you come to terms with it?"

"Forget it. Let it go. Who even says you have to?"

The road forked to embrace a plot of paved land on which sat a small country inn. Once an old farm house, the first story had been built of tawny stone and the second of red bricks, now weathered to a soft rose. On the far side of the plot, away from the inn building was an ugly double box of yellow brick with a sign that said CAFE-MUSEUM-MESSINES. "This is it," MacLeod said, and killed the engine. "Welcome to Sod's Corner Inn."

"Sod's Corner?"

"That's what we called The Salient. It was like a thumb in the Kaiser's eye, but they held the high ground and you'd be buggered to get out alive."

"But, you said you'd been coming here for…?"

"Two hundred years, give or take. And so I have." MacLeod opened his door. "Come on, you'll love Mickey."

"I will?" Methos got out and watched Macleod go bounding up the steps. "Who's Mickey?"

An immortal; he felt the Presence immediately.

Macleod was at the desk slapping the table bell with the palm of his hand, shouting, "Innkeep! Service! You've custom!"

A sandy-haired man came loping down the hall and stopped. Then, spying MacLeod, he surged forward with his arms open, crying, "Strike me blind, Mac! I'd given you up."

Watching the two embrace with mutually assured enthusiasm, Methos stood back.

Mickey was taller than MacLeod, a bit stoop-shouldered, wearing an olive drab sweatshirt and blue jeans—the jeans were American; the accent and expressions of pleasure were English. Hardship and strain had etched Mickey's face deeply. He'd pass for a youthful fifty these days, but Methos would have bet that Blain had been in his late twenties when he died. The old-fashioned bifocals were a nice touch—Methos acknowledged that from behind the glare of the lens that he was being similarly sorted out over MacLeod's shoulder.

Mickey released MacLeod from the bear hug, but kept an arm around his shoulders as he extended a hand to Methos.

"Mickey Blain," he said. "Landlord. I'm an _old_ friend. Mac and me, we was pals in the Great War."

"Adam Pierson," Methos said, shaking hands. "It's always good to meet an old friend of MacLeod's."

"Is Bobby around?" MacLeod said.

"No. He's back in Blighty. On leave."

MacLeod's raised an eyebrow and Mickey responded with an upward tick of his shoulder. "He was getting a bit worn down. People were noticing."

"Yeah, they'll do that."

Mickey scooped up MacLeod's duffel. "Let's get you fixed up; you'll want dinner."

"Yes. I'm starving," Methos said. As they followed Mickey up the stairs, he shot a look of reproach at MacLeod. "What did I say about sentimental journeys?"

"Oh, hush," MacLeod said. "Wait 'til you see the room.

It was almost worth forgiving MacLeod. Directly under the gable and, as promised, there was a hearth, two beds that weren't too narrow with eiderdowns and, best of all, a large modern bathroom into which MacLeod immediately vanished.

Methos tucked himself into the window seat that was set deep into the thick wall. There was enough room to curl up, watch the last of the daylight fade, and listen to the sound of running water. When MacLeod came out, rosy and sleek as seal, from his shower, it was also wide enough to accommodate them both.

"So you and Mickey 'was pals in the Great War'?"

MacLeod smiled. "Yes."

"And which Great War would that be?"

"Peninsular. He was our cook. Best forager in the regiment. After Waterloo, he left the army, married a French woman and moved here to keep this place. He's managed to stay on, even if he has had to rebuild it a couple of times since."

"And Bobby-back-in-Blighty—you do know Mickey's lying about him, don't you?"

"Yes. He was never good. You'd ask him were the chicken in the pot came from. He'd swear he paid for it honest, and then his shoulder'd gie that li'l twitch."

"What's the story? Don't tell me there isn't a story."

"Shell shock." MacLeod sighed. "He died hard and didn't take it well."

"How did they…?" Methos crossed the two middle fingers of his right hand.

"Companion? During the war. The last one, I mean. They were both in the Resistance, and one thing Bobby was good at was killing Jerrys. He just liked it too much. But he did the _Cordon Bleu_ after the war. Now, he pretty much helps Mickey with running the place. Organizes the museum. It's good for him here. It's quiet and out of the way. Great cook."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"Don't be concerned. There's not chance he'd harm a guest in Mickey's house."

"As long as he holds guest right…" Methos reached out and picked up a lock of MacLeod's damp dark hair. He began curling it around his finger.

…_that man standing in his father's tent was like no one the child had ever seen. Big and blunt featured and the hair on his head curled as tightly as fleece of a black ram. Around his neck was a circle of dark twisted metal..._

MacLeod wondered about the dreamy look in Methos's eyes. "Are you still pissed at me?"

"No. I should be." Methos whispered, as he began winding the fragment of dark hair around his finger. "'Penny, brown penny…' behold the beneficial effects of a feather bed and, I believe, you said something about there being mulled wine for later, yes?"

"I promise. There will be mulled wine for later."

Methos kept winding, pulling MacLeod closer and closer, until their lips nearly touched.

"Hey!" MacLeod's brow went up, as if he'd been suddenly struck by some notion or other. "I thought you were starving."

"I didn't say for what."

_I'm looped in the loops of your hair._

It was only that the rich aroma creeping up the stairs smelled delicious enough to lure them down.

Mickey came in as they made the landing, bringing with him a draught of damp raw air with him from outside. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming down," he said, and cast a knowing eye at their flushed faces. "You'd have regretted it."

"It smells wonderful," MacLeod said. "'D'ye steal the mayor's pig?"

"None of that, Mac," Mickey said, leading them down the hall to a paneled dining room. "I keep an honest house these days. We raise our own animals, and have three stars in the last Michelin guide."

He seated them against the wall, away from the door. "I'll tell Christine to bring a bottle—let me know what you think of it, by the way—and I recommend the stirrabout; that's what you smell."

Mickey disappeared into the kitchen, giving them a chance to look around. The dining room seated eight tables white linen clothes and candles glowing in brass stands. Their fellow diners looked like a local couple, just finishing their meal; there were two middle-aged men, as well, chatting in antipodean accents; and a young man with a map spread out on the table in front of him.

The young man's hiking boots and khaki pants were muddy and still damp around the bottom.After dismissing the lot, Methos picked up the candle stand and examined it. It was an artillery shell that been engraved polished and fitted with a glass cover. Tracing the decorative leaves and curlicues with a finger, he said, "Wars leave so much trash to clean up. It least this bit's being recycled. You think I'd find one for sale in the museum?"

"I expect so. Bobby makes them."

"Bobby-back-in-Blighty?"

"Mmm…" MacLeod nodded. "He used to be a silversmith."

"A smith?" Methos looked up. "He did good work."

Christine came with the promised bottle and took their order, assuring them that the _pot-au-feu_ was a good as it smelled. The wine, garnet in the candle light, was a complicated, full bodied Burgundy, worth savoring.

"You know," Methos finally said, "I let you drag me here."

"Pouting all the way."

"It's what I do best. Don't you think it's about time you told me what we're doing here?"

MacLeod sighed. "I want to put flowers on Sean Burn's grave."

Methos stared at him. "Tell me you made that up."

MacLeod shook his head.

"For God's sake! Why the sudden outburst of sentimentality? First Keane, now…"

"Keane was Sean's student. Letting Keane live means there's something left of Sean in the world."

"Not taking Keane's head may be the stupidest thing you've ever done."

"Methos, killing Sean is the worst thing I have ever done. When I think back on…that time…I know I owe you my life and my sanity, but I owed him, too, far, far longer…" MacLeod placed his two hands to his lip in an attitude of prayer. "During the war, you don't know…I drove the ambulances, I worked for the Red Cross and…

"You were a mule skinner, a grave digger and a bloody body snatcher!"

"Stretcher bearer!"

"Whatever. That's not what you called it then. What you're saying is that you didn't take up arms."

"That's right. I couldn't; I promised Darius I wouldn't. I still couldn't stay away from it. I was gassed. Shot. Got blown off the duck boards, God know how many times, and drowned in a shell hole, more than once, bringing a man in…" MacLeod said. "Went out night after night, carrying the wounded to the dressing stations, trying to save lives, and all I felt was horribly, horribly guilty. Because I wasn't fighting. But Sean…I don't know how he stood it…the hospital…the horrific wounds…the nurses died from the gas in the soldier's clothing. He carried on, and he made it possible for me to carry on." Methos nodded. MacLeod stopped and squinted at him, suspiciously. "How do you know about that?"

"I read your chronicles."

"That is not fair."

"I know, but mine are so tedious; there're just no surprises left in it…also I know that the last thing Sean would want you to do is torture yourself."

"I'm not torturing myself." MacLeod met Methos's dubious expression. "This is what I owe Sean; I have his quickening. It's what lets me go on living with myself in something like peace."

"Then there is something else of him, besides Keane, in the world."

"Yes," MacLeod said, and looked down.

"And for that," Methos said, "I will go with you and I will pour a libation for Sean's spirit."

The local couple got up and left.

After a moment, MacLeod touched his glass to Methos'. "Thank you."

The waitress brought their food, and they settled down to eat.

The stew was as good as Mickey had promised it would be and it would have been pleasant to enjoy it in companionable silence.

Unfortunately, one of older men pulled out a note book and began reading. He had an unfortunately penetrating voice, and as he read it became louder and more urgent, until it was impossible to ignore what he was saying—

"'…_burying several million tons of ammonal explosive. On June, 7th, nineteen of the twenty-two mines were detonated in the largest man-made, non-nuclear explosion in history. It was said that Lloyd-George, in Downing Street, felt his windows rattle. The blast took off the top of the ridge, annihilating the German trenches and killing hundreds of the defenders outright. Those that survived were left deafened, dazed and terrified.'"_

When he stopped, the young man with the muddy pants asked him if he was familiar with the battlefield. He said yes; he and his friend were from New Zealand; this was their fourth trip; they were documenting the mine craters.

The hiker introduced himself. He was Canadian and had spent the day searching for his great-grandfather's grave; with no luck.

_Ah,_ the kiwis said, it was impossible to trust the Commonwealth Graves' maps, but they brought their own guides for each sector of the battlefield and they began quizzing him on when his great-grandfather had been killed; he wasn't sure; he thought it was on Messines Ridge. The two became excited; did he realize that was where greatest mining operation of the war had occurred? They started bickering over whether the _Messines Ridge Cemetery_ or the _Island of Ireland Peace Park_ was the more likely location to look for his grave.

MacLeod put his fork down. "Excuse me." He stood up and walked over to the Canadian's table. "In what battalion did your great-grandfather serve?"

"36th Ulster Rifles."

"The Stickies?"

"That's it! How did you…?"

"What was his name?"

"Kilbride. William Kilbride."

"Go look in _One Tree Hill Cemetery_. His name will be on the memorial stone. It's a mass grave."

As MacLeod walked back to the table, the Canadian called, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." MacLeod said, and sat down.

Methos refilled his glass. "Bad one?"

"Eighty-eight men buried up there. By the end of the war been shelled so many times, that the bodies had been churned up…" He suddenly turned and roared at the three, "It was just bits and pieces; no way to tell who was whom!"

They gathered their gear and decamped at speed.

A short time later, Mickey came in. Shutting the door carefully behind him, he pulled a chair to their table. "Thank you much, Mac," he said, "Now, I've got those Enzed nutters in my taproom, bullying that poor boy and annoying my regulars." He picked up the bottle of wine and refilled their glasses, pouring one for himself. "I swear, some people think this is Flanders-fucking-Disneyland."

"What's with the mines?" MacLeod said.

"Other than the Freudian obvious," Methos said.

Mickey laughed. "They think know where the lost one is."

"There's a lost mine?"

"Don't smirk. Nineteen went off. Two didn't—no one knows why—after the war, they lost them. Or, anyway, they lost the location. Probably used the map for bumf."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. One of them blew up in a thunder storm in 1955. Killed a cow."

"And these guys have a theory about the last one?"

"Sure do. But the joke's on them; there's no secret! You're going up to Blauwepoort Wood tomorrow?

"We are," MacLeod said.

Mickey to Methos.

"When you're up on the ridge, look west across the Hubert farm. You'll see a duck pond between the house and the road. The duck pond is the '55 crater. The missing mine has to be under the road on other side."

"No one's ever gone looking for it?"

"Not from around here," Mickey said. "And last time I volunteered, Hooky said was a farmhouse needed defending. I've made it my practice to stand down, ever since. So…" He dusted the away the thought. "What do you think of the wine?"

"It's superb," MacLeod said. "Let us have a couple of bottles for a picnic? I thought to show Adam around. You know, here we was and there they was?"

"Of course; I'll ask Christine put up a basket for you. Speaking of tomorrow, you are going to stay over, yes?" He smiled at Methos. "I've been looking forward to catching up with this guy."

Christine stuck her head in the door just then to say they needed Mickey to bring a keg up to the taproom. "Place keeps me jumping." He stood up. "I wish Bobby was here."

"How's he doing?"

"Good days. Bad days. November's never good, and what with the weather we've been having…Some days, it's still '17."

"I'm sorry," MacLeod said.

"Hardly your fault." Mickey shook his head. "Some just aren't for it." It looked for a moment as if he wanted to add something else. Then he hitched his shoulder and walked away.

"What happened in '17?" Methos said, when was gone.

"Rain. Like the Flood. It rained from August through December. Haig wanted that advance, and if you haven't experienced Flanders mud…you've wouldn't believe they sent men to fight in it. It took sixteen men in relays to carry out one under fire. The weight of a man, his kit, the lot clogged with mud and soaked with rain. Your hands went numb. Three miles of mud to the dressing station, only to find out he was dead. The earth was pounded to porridge. There was quicksand and if fellow got blown off a duck board, or slipped…you hustled on by 'cause Jerry would pot you. Bobby got stuck, trapped in a shell hole up to his shoulders under a box barrage. And we did try with the stretcher poles and a man in the middle to make a chain. But the more we pulled, the more he struggled, the further down he went. He kept begging someone to shoot him. But who could? So he died. For three days. He was mad by the end if not before."

Methos stroked a finger over the engraving on the candle stand. "Some get stuck in more ways than one."

"But not you, my friend," MacLeod said, splitting the last of the bottle between their glasses. "Let's get another of these. You ready to go upstairs?"

"Yes," Methos said.

While they'd been at dinner, a fire had been lit in the grate and a tinned copper had appeared on the hearth beside a pair of mugs, a pepper mill, a jar of honey and a dish of lemons.

"Come and sit with me," MacLeod said, installing himself on the rug in front of the hearth. Methos came and sat down crisscross beside him. Their knees touched. "This is an old family recipe, from when Connor and I shared lodgings in Gerrard Street." He thrust the poker that had been leaning against the jamb into the burning wood and filled the copper and added the honey and spice. He set the pepper mill down and snaked an arm around Methos, drawing them together in a slow kiss. Slowly, because with Methos he was always as a ranger, exploring an unknown land, but tonight he felt was no resistance in Methos and that emboldened to hope push deeper. In fact the kiss was so deep and all-consuming in the end that it took a spitting ember to remind him what they were supposed to be there about.

He broke away laughing, and said, "Mickey will kill me, if I burn the place down, again."

"How many times have you done that?"

"Only the once, I swear. And it was in Spain."

"Still, you should let me do that, then."

Using a napkin, Methos removed the poker from the fire. The tip had turned a deep red. He plunged it into the copper, setting the wine to hissing and bubbling, and releasing a pungent steam that tickled the nose. He poured and handed a mug to MacLeod and took one for himself. They sat together, watching the flames burn down, holding mugs of the old-fashioned sweet and peppery drink close, double comfort against the raw wind outside. Heat flowed from wine to flesh and somewhere between sips they began trading kisses, fleeting tastes of lip and tongue that lingered into deep caresses.

MacLeod, overwhelmed by the lust he'd been keeping a grip on far too long, made a mistake. Greedy to get at it, he set his mug down and, roughly, ordered, "Get your clothes off."

Methos was hardly unwilling. The kiss would have had to end anyway, if things were going to progress any further, and even immortals have to breathe. But when he'd gotten himself extricated from his jumper, he saw MacLeod reach into his back pocket and take out a handful of green foil packets (He'd had them tucked away since the stop in Arras.) and set them within easy reach.

Methos picked one up. They were a brand of a personal lubricant well-known for its warming qualities. He quirked an eyebrow at MacLeod.

"Been too long I've had you," MacLeod said, pulling off his vest.

With his head covered, he missed the flash in Methos's eyes that would have warned him there was a wiser way. And when he'd tossed the vest away and Methos hadn't moved, he compounded his sin by knocking him flat, and ordering, "Unzip!"

Methos indulged him that far but lay there reflecting how ever since MacLeod had shown up at this door the night before, all moist and macho, insisting on routing him out of his nice warm bed and dragging him off to Flanders, he had gone along with him. Bitching and moaning the whole way, it was true, but he'd still gone along with what was essentially the Duncan Macleod Show. And it looked like that was what he was doing now, lying there and letting MacLeod deal with his boots and his socks and the skinning of his jeans. In a lot of ways, it was perfectly fine and pleasant being handled and petted…but someone was getting way out of hand.

And it was perfectly fine with MacLeod. He loved unwrapping presents. He adored rendering Methos naked, except for the tight black shorts bulging prick-proud, and sprawled out in front of him…

Methos smiled.

MacLeod caught his breath back and bent to tug at the waistband of the shorts, rolling them down. Methos helped him by pulling his leg free and the bulge unfurled.

Anticipating a mouthful of salty maleness, MacLeod bent with his lips parted to have a taste of it.

And that was when Methos struck—

A quick roll of hips and MacLeod's neck was locked under a knee and his head was clamped between powerful thighs. Taken unawares, he couldn't protest. Like a child who screams for a jaw-breaker until it's crammed in his mouth and then finds he can neither swallow it nor spit it out. His eyes grew big. And bigger, when he realized that Methos had no intention of letting go; he was trapped. He stuck his ass in the air, pulling and mewing. It was no go. He snarled and his eyebrows raged. Starting to think about the katana, hanging in the closet, he growled around the meat in his mouth. As a last resort, he tried teeth and got his ears slammed for his trouble.

"Don't even think about it. There are three different ways I can kill you, but I'd prefer to get some use out of your mouth."

MacLeod blinked and dialed his eyebrows back to an interrogative setting; Methos picked up one of the foil packets and flicked it off of his nose. "Ask! You've been a highhanded snot for the last two days. Whatever you think of me, or what I've done, doesn't entitle you to grab mine whenever you want a piece of ass."

MacLeod's face turned dusky red.

Finally, he dropped his gaze.

"Good boy." Methos, half-closed his eyes and, shivering with pleasurable tension, began to flex his hips. "I'm glad we had this conversation. Now, suck or choke."

MacLeod set himself to sucking. (Honesty compelled him to admit it was a fair cop—and the second thing that Connor had taught him, after how to win a fight, was how to lose one.)

Having carried his point, Methos untangled his legs, easing the pressure on MacLeod's ears. He lay there watching and gradually the stubborn rhythm of MacLeod's mouth found its ragged counterpoint in the heaving of his chest.

His shorts still hung from his ankle. He gave them a little flip and sent them off to drop like a persistent memory from the rim of a lampshade. He opened his thighs, the better to display himself and to prove to MacLeod that that submission can have its rewards. Also, the better to watch MacLeod's cheeks pull in and puff out, because—really?—Duncan MacLeod with his skin all burnished by firelight and suckin' away like a good 'un? He couldn't have dreamed of more satisfying moment. All was forgiven. Coming in Duncan's mouth, with their hands that had somehow found each other threaded together, was a thing of pure and shocking pleasure.

It was equally pleasurable, though less pure, for Duncan. He still had his pants on and when he collapsed, quenched and drenched, the melting sweetness in his briefs too quickly became cold and clammy. Sooner than he liked, he had to get up on all fours. His conscience, though, commanded him to lay his head on Methos' stomach.

"_Mea culpa,_" he said,_ "Mia maxima culpa._"

"Ten Hail Mary's." Methos blessed him with an admonitory smack. "What's the lesson?"

"Ask. Clear the hurdles. Say please. Tie you down first."

MacLeod got to his feet, unbuckled his belt and kicked his jeans off. When he bent to pick them up, another scattering of foil packets fell on the rug.

"How many of those did you buy?"

"There were ten in the box." MacLeod gathered them up, and went to toss them in the wastebasket.

"Hey!" Methos stopped him. "Waste not, want not, Highlander. Live. Grow strong. Fuck another day."

"Spare me the ineffable wisdom of the ancients."

"Oh, it's pretty damned effable from where I'm sitting." Methos gave him one of his best smug squinches, then stretched his arms behind his head and contemplated an eiderdown through half-closed eyes. "Why don't you go rinse your shorts and meet me in that bed? I'll bet we'd both fit."

"Definitely tying you down next time," Methos heard him say, as the bathroom door closed behind him.

"We'll see…maybe." Methos smiled like a cat.

There was still burnt wine left and there was plenty of room in bed, especially if MacLeod tucked himself under Methos's arm and put his head on his shoulder, luxuriating in skin on skin. He would have given anything to let go of the tension and forget the haunting sense of having transgressed.

"I didn't mean…"

"I know."

"I only wanted…"

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"Believe me; I know that, too. Love, your conscience is as magnificent a guilt machine as I've ever seen, but please turn it off for once." He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it.

"Love?" MacLeod said.

"Lover." Methos attempted to recover, but he could feel MacLeod's eyelashes fluttering against his neck. The man was thinking. "Go to sleep," he said, and closed his eyes.

Not quickly enough, though; MacLeod pounced.

"Tell me the first thing you remember."

"Do we have to do this tonight?" Methos sighed.

"One thing."

"I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"You've read my chronicles. Give me one thing of yours that isn't a myth or a lie."

"Duncan…" desperately, "I don't have words."

"Find them." MacLeod rolled on top of him, as if he thought Methos would run away. Methos actually found himself spreading his legs to accommodate him.

"God, you are such an ass."

"Please." MacLeod begged with kisses.

"Wanker!"

"Yes." More kisses.

"Oh…damn it." Methos hugged the weight and warmth of MacLeod's body to him. "Stop that. I'll give you the color of my father's hair…there's no word in English for it, but it's the color of acorns in the fall."

…_and I'm up before him, clutching his horse's mane. The rolling thunder is the pounding of hooves on the earth. The horses are screaming. The world is on fire. But my father has his arms around me…I'm safe…_

When MacLeod woke the next morning, Methos was sitting in the window seat, already dressed.

"You're up early."

"I went for a walk."

MacLeod poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the bedside table, observing the glum intensity with which Methos was looking out the window. "What's the matter?"

"Is Bobby-back-in-Blighty a six-foot-something blond lunk?"

"Pretty much."

"Then would you mind if we skipped breakfast? I'm pretty sure he saw me and he didn't look happy about it. I feel I've made all the new friends I can stand for a while."

"Give me minute," MacLeod said, and went to get dressed.

Mickey was nowhere to be seen when they left but Christine was up. She looked harried, bustling about, getting the dining room ready for breakfast but she had their lunch in a box, with two bottles of wine, ready to for them to take.

The morning was clear and blue, although, mare's tails and mackerel scales to the north promised a later storm.

Instead of turning west toward the Roman road, they took a country road that passed through tiny villages and farms. It was impossible not to notice the harvest of barbed wire and clusters of unexploded shells gathered in the corners of fields in the road. Once there was a tattered gas mask someone had left on a hedge. It was also impossible not to notice how many memorials and cemeteries were sprinkled like confetti across this patch of ground.

Past Blauwepoort, MacLeod turned down a narrow farm lane. A gently sloping ridge began to rise on their right. Two miles later they came to a car park at the head of marked path going up the ridge. The car park was bounded by a stand of pine, giving protection from the constant wind. At the top of the ridge you could see a red brick wall enclosing a cemetery.

"This is it," MacLeod said, and went to open the boot of the car and get out the bunch of white roses that he'd ordered and picked up in Paris yesterday.

Methos took a bottle of wine from their picnic box and slipped a corkscrew in his pocket.

Together they climbed the gently undulating slope, following a shallow saw-tooth lane in the earth. At the top the wrought iron gate set in the brick wall was unlocked. MacLeod went in. Methos waited outside.

Like most of the cemeteries they had driven by there was a cross of sacrifice standing on a plinth in the center. Unlike most of those cemeteries, the stones here had been placed in concentric circles around it. The shape of the stones was uniform, although the service symbols were varied…a thistle, a dragon, a maple leaf. Where there was a name, there was sometimes a Cross or a Star of David or a Crescent below. A few of them bore wreathes and cards. On too many of them there was no name. The carving read simply _Known But to God_. Near the gate was a stone, a little lighter than the others, that bore a laurel wreath and caduceus. The inscription read _Capt. Sean Burns RAMC killed 1917_ and at the bottom _A keen blade and a healer's heart. _

Here MacLeod, regardless of the mud and the damage to his trousers, chose to kneel and place his flowers at the base of the stone. Unselfconsciously he folded his hands and bowed his head. "Sean," Methos heard him praying, "I am so grievously sorry that I struck you down in my madness. It is a burden I will bear forever…forgive me, intercede for me and help me in my time…"

Not wanting to hear more, Methos strolled along the path that followed the edge of the slope. It took him to a point where he could see the flat brown fields of Flanders spreading out smoothly as a counterpane. In the distance the spires of Ypres—its rebuilt cathedral and medieval cloth hall—stood proudly against the sky. Considered as highlands the slope was unimpressive, yet it was easy to see how an enemy, once dug in, could dominate—had dominated—the position for years. Sod's Corner.

He took the corkscrew out of his pocket and began twisting it into his bottle. In the car park where they had left MacLeod's BMW, a motorcycle pulled in. The rider knelt began undoing a slim case clipped to the side of his machine.

"I'm done." MacLeod came up behind him. His voice was hoarse and his brogue thicker than usual.

Methos turned and gripped his shoulder briefly. "I'll be quick," he said, and went inside the circle of stones. Standing in front of Sean's, he popped the cork and poured the wine over the wilted grass, adding his offering to Duncan's roses. "Sean," he said, "your name is unmade, but it is not lost and it will not be forgotten."

"Methos…" He heard Duncan call. "I think we've trouble."

"I know. Why don't we stay up here? Holy ground and…" _Damn!_ MacLeod was already hurrying down the path. Methos threw the bottle away and ran to catch up. "Haven't you ever heard of discretion? What's the problem? He'd get tired, eventually."

"He's a friend," MacLeod said. "Let me talk to him."

"Oh, by all means, talk to him." There's nothing that can't be resolved by a good talking through."

The man at the bottom of the hill was holding what looked a very serviceable 1912 cavalry sabre. Methos undid the belt of coat.

"Sergeant Keith," Macleod called. "It's me, Mac."

"I know."

MacLeod indicated the sabre in Bobby's hand. "What's this then?"

"I've come for the Boshe."

Bobby lifted the weapon. It was pure reflex that MacLeod drew his katana.

Methos skipped out of the range of its deadly arc, muttering, "Why am I not surprised?" and Bobby's eyes, glittering with madness, followed him.

"Where do you think you're going, Kammerad?"

"Nowhere, if I can help it."

Methos drew his broadsword and Bobby made a move to go around MacLeod and get at him. MacLeod blocked his move.

"It's me he called, Mac," Methos said. "Back off!"

But MacLeod kept the katana extended across the space between them. "Bobby, you don't know what you're doing."

"I saw that filthy Hun lurking around the gun emplacements this morning."

"What are you talking about? What gun emplacements?"

"I stopped by the museum this morning…" Methos moved off to the right, trying to expose himself and draw Bobby away from MacLeod… "Nice collection."

"See! He admits it, he's a spy!"

"He's no spy," MacLeod said. "He's my friend."

"Then you're a traitor!" Bobby took a swing at MacLeod.

His swing was all abroad and MacLeod evaded it easily.

What he couldn't evade, because he wasn't expecting it, was Methos slipping around and coming in on his blind side to crack his hand with the flat of the broadsword. The Katana clattered on the asphalt. MacLeod reached for it. Methos cut his arm. "Don't!"

"What are you doing?" MacLeod crouched, clutching his bleeding wound.

"He called _me_. It's _tynged_! You can't interfere."

They glared at each other.

MacLeod's mouth was a straight line in his face. His black brows beetled with Highland stubbornness, but the one incontrovertible fact of their immortal existence compelled him to back away. He was as pale as Methos had ever seen him.

As soon as he backed away Bobby attacked, coming in high and aiming at Methos's neck. It was probably the only chance Bobby would have. Methos didn't blame him; he was expecting it and parried easily. They stood off, circling each other like cats, Bobby probing for an opening. Both of them disregarded a yellow Mercedes that pulled into the car park and jerked to a halt.

"We don't have to do this," Methos said. "I wouldn't kill a smith, even a whitesmith."

"What're you blathering about, Allyman?"

"It's a personal thing, you chronic case, but if you insist…"

There was a flurry of blades, a brief exchange, which confirmed for Methos that Bobby was no swordsman. He held his left hand up.

"Yield," he said. "You can't beat me. There's no dishonor."

"See you in hell." Bobby attempted another wild lunge.

Methos dodged and feinted toward his head. Bobby raised his sabre to block the cut and Methos reversed the edge downward, severing his hamstring. Bobby staggered, but in spite of what had to be a hideous painful wound, he attempted a desperate third swing. Methos cut his other leg. Bobby fell to his knees. He dropped the sabre and looked up at Methos, as if to ask why, and exposing his throat.

"I'm sorry," Methos said, and took a two handed grip on the hilt of his sword.

As the head flew off and rolled across the tarmac, someone—Mickey— screamed Bobby's name.

Methos was aware of MacLeod running.

All he could do was stagger the few steps to the grass to plant his sword in the earth and brace himself for the quickening.

Unlike orgasm, it began with all his boundaries stripped away but instead of an outpouring of engendering ecstasy, he was trapped in the grip of his own immortal nature, rendered an empty welcoming vessel as the surging waves of energypassed through him, hot as the sun, almost obliterating his immortal core. He hadn't known Bobby Keith. He hadn't wanted _this_, but he wanted to live and instinctively reached out, seizing what he could and holding on to it, because that would be all that remained.

As Methos endured it, he subsuming Bobby's essence and the wind began to blow. Around him, molecules in the air became charged and superheated. Bolts of lightning began to dance around him, melting the tarmac into pools of asphalt where they struck. The stand of resinous pines burst into flame, setting the fencing around the car park on fire.

A bolt of lightning found the hilt of his sword. It seared the flesh from his hands and shattered the blade as it passed into the ground, where it found a snarl of rusty iron and old copper wire along which it zipped until it came to the chamber containing the last mine with its charge of 50,000 pounds of explosive ammonal, and ignited it.

Methos was on his knees clutching his burned hands to his chest. They had healed, but the memory of pain lasts longer when he felt the earth twitch and tremble. He thought it was the last of Bobby's quickening and how surprisingly powerful it was for one who had been so young. He was wishing he knew where MacLeod had gotten himself when, from deep below the Flanders clay, the hill behind him erupted in an explosion of volcanic proportion—smoke, flame, rock and earth—the substance of the hill was blown over the car-park, the road and the fields.

A giant's hand seized hold of Methos and squeezed the air from his lungs. It splintered his bones and flung the insensate ragdoll that was left skyward.

His body came down, jetsam amid the hail of debris falling back to earth. It hit a rock, crushing his head.

From such deaths, the come-back is fast, and very painful.

He woke half-buried, eye-less, earless, tongue-less; in an agony of broken bones that were snapping into place and nerve rethreading and reestablishing connections with gelatinized guts and tendons reforming at speed.

Sight is the first priority.

Light stabbed his brain. He rolled over to hide from it, crouching and whimpering, pawing blood and dirt from the sockets until he had lids to protect the new lens.

The swarm of wasps buzzing in his head flew away and was replaced by a mewing he was able to understand was someone crying. He could feel a Presence.

Spitting muck, he got to his knees and began crawling up the muddy side of the newly blasted crater. The earth was loose and slick and he kept sliding back. Eventually, he figured out how to dig in with his elbows and then made slow progress. "Uh-an?" he called. His tongue was a clumsy stump but he kept calling until he flopped over the rim and roll down the other side.

The air was smoky but the sky above was still blue.

Methos took a slow breath, testing, letting his lungs expanded fully. Then he stood up. His coat was gone. One leg of his pants was gone and with it the boot that had been on that foot. He tugged the tail of his ragged shirt down, as neat as he could make it, and turned around and around, trying to find his bearings. Where…?

The slope they had climbed was obliterated. In its place lurked a gaping crater, at least 90 meters wide and 30 meters deep. At the top the brick wall was gone, although he could see the tip of the Cross of Sacrifice sticking out at crazy angle above the dirt at upper rim. At the bottom, half the pavement was gone. The force of the explosion had shattered the windows of the yellow Mercedes, partially burying it. But by chance MacLeod's BMW, which had been sitting closer to the road, appeared to be intact except for one broken window.

The crying was different, softer now. It was coming from the stumps where the trees had stood

He set out, stumbling over the rubble underfoot and spotted Bobby's cavalry sabre in the dirt. The blade was bent. He picked it up, anyway.

He found MacLeod alive, sitting in the dirt with the katana across his lap and when he looked at Methos's approach, there were pale tracks through the grime on his cheeks. Near where he was sitting Bobby's headless body hung impaled on a pine stump. It did not look as if it had been beheaded. There was no sign of Mickey.

"C'mon." He snagged MacLeod under the arm and pulled him to his feet.

MacLeod staggered heavily and almost knocked him down. "I thought you were…"

"I was." There were sirens in the distance. "Move! We can't stay here."

MacLeod agreed, "Have to find a bivvy."

"If that means a place to hide, why didn't you think of it sooner?"

Together they stumbled to the car.

At first it wouldn't start.

MacLeod turned the key, cursing as the starter cranked and cranked. Finally, the engine caught and turned over. They drove away just in time, within two minutes they had to pull over for an emergency vehicle.

The car shivered as it passed them at speed with all its lights flashing. It was shortly followed three more.

They kept driving another hour before they found a service station in a village called Tielen where they could stop for petrol and use the facilities.

The BMW was the first thing, in case someone happened to notice the dirt and broken windows and put two and two together. Putting it through a car-wash took care of that.

Next was the fact that both of them were filthy. The filth could be rectified somewhat with soap and paper towels in the lavatory. As far as clothes MacLeod could make do—thanks to his leather coat, his jumper had survived and he had a spare pair of jeans to put on. But Methos's clothes were a total loss.

He had to sit tight in the car while MacLeod did the best he could for him in a local shop and spent the time eating ginger-lemon cookies, listening to the radio, and trying to stop his nerves from replaying the too rapid revival. In a drastic energy deficit, he'd consumed two boxes of cookies by the time MacLeod came back.

MacLeod threw himself into the car and a bag into Methos's lap. He started the motor, turned the car around and began heading back the way they'd come.

"What are you doing?" Methos protested, waving at the dash. "On the radio they're telling people to stay out of the area until it's been cleared."

"I know. It's all anyone in the store was talking about," MacLeod said.

He drove until he came to a trucker's lay-by that he'd noticed on the way into the village. There was a picnic table and a portable toilet. "Go and get dressed," he said, "You've got have something to eat, besides cookies, and then we have to decide what to do."

Methos started for the port-a-pot, dragging Bobby's bent sabre with him. He took two steps and then turned around to MacLeod with his hand out. "Got any change? It costs a Euro to use that thing, and I seem to have misplaced my billfold."

MacLeod dug out the lunch Christine had packed for them that morning and took it to the table to sort out while Methos dressed. There was salad and some of the meat left from the _pot-au-feu_ last night. There was cheese and bread and grapes. He'd bought more food, as well: sausage, cheese, raisins, chocolate and some energy bars—all the high-calorie things he could think of—and more of the lemon-ginger cookies, since Methos seemed to like them.

Methos came out of the toilet wearing a white sweatshirt, khaki cargos and the trainers that MacLeod had bought for him. He leaned Bobby's sabre against the picnic table as he sat down. "It's not worth the fixing."

MacLeod said, "I'm thinking we have to go back and find Mickey."

"No, we don't."

"He's alive."

"Bully for him. Let the experts dig him out."

"We have to…"

"What? Talk to him? Apologize for me killing his _fanti_ friend, have him name me and come after me?"

"I won't let him."

"The way you didn't let Bobby?" Methos said. "That's the way to put the tin hat on it, MacLeod. Can't you get it through your thick skull that you, and your guilt complex, are not the bloody center of the universe? In case you hadn't noticed; I do not need you to protect me!"

"Yeah? And who stuck his nose in between me and Keane?"

"Oh, fine! It was Amanda's idea but go ahead throw it in my face. Do you know long I had that broadsword?"

"Not a clue."

"Three hundred years. Now it's a scrap of slag under a pile of dirt." Methos picked up the sabre and slammed it on the table top. "I need a new sword—just in case we happen to meet another old friend of yours."

"I'll get you another one." MacLeod shoved a sandwich at him. "Eat."

Methos ate. MacLeod watched him. Finally, he sighed and said, "I can't help it. Sean said I was raised to defend the clan."

"What...?"

"He said I was raised to fight—to defend the clan—and anything else feels wrong."

"Are you saying you see me as part of your clan?"

"How many ways do I have to try making it clear?"

"I don't know. I don't know how that makes me feel."

"To tell you the truth—I hadn't thought about it that way before, either—but I would hope it makes you feel good."

"Why? I'd managed to stay out of the game for two hundred years. Then you come along and, today, I died the kind of death I've always tried to avoid."

MacLeod reached out and captured one of Methos's hands. "Last night, you gave me something. Tell me what you want."

"A sword. I need to…"

He meant to elaborate, but MacLeod was already up and bundling the trash together. "Let me toss this," he was saying. "We'll go back to Paris. I know a good sword-smith there. And there's one Rheims who does good work, although there's a man in Sheffield who still…"

Still talking, MacLeod got up to carry the trash to waste can. He didn't see Methos pick up the sabre and heft the hilt in his hand. Neither did he see Methos come up behind him, take careful aim and smash the pommel into the back of his skull.

The blow killed him instantly.

"I know a man, too," Methos said, as he bent to hook MacLeod under the arms and drag him to the car "I think it's time the two of you met."

"You have got to go on a diet," he muttered, shoving him unceremoniously into the back seat.

Taking the seat behind the steering wheel, he ripped open the last box of ginger-lemon biscuits and crammed three of them in his mouth. Only then did he start the engine and begin heading north.

Duncan woke up in a dark place, aware of a queasy feeling in his stomach. He could tell he was in the back seat of the BMW, but wherever the BMW was and whatever it was sitting on, was wallowing all over the place.

He could feel the throbbing of powerful engines. There was the blast of a fog horn and the smell of diesel fumes. He sat up and an empty box of biscuits fell on the floor. Dim as it was, he could see outside and the car was hemmed in closely by other vehicles. It had to be one of the Cross Channel Ferries. Probably from Ostend. He couldn't have been dead long.

He eased himself out carefully. There wasn't much room between cars and the floor…no…the deck under his feet was rising and falling precipitously. He spotted the exit to the upper levels and made his way there, with great determination.

Up a set of steel stairs that debouched into a corridor, he found a sign with an arrow that said Way To All Passenger Decks.

The door at the end of the corridor was closed and, when he touched the knob, he could feel it jumping in his hand to a quick rhythm. Opened, there was an immense amount of noise and another flight of stair with man sitting on them, who, by his uniform had to be one of the stewards, sitting there, puffing on a cigarette in clear violation of the line's NO SMOKING rule.

Since he seemed supremely uninterested the sudden appearance of Duncan in front of him, Duncan edged around him and climbed the steps high enough to peer above the deck. There was a hell of a party going on. He could feel the beat of the drums in his gut and there were a great many feet stomping very hard much too close to his head.

He eased himself back down the step and settled on the stair beside the steward, who offered his pack of Dunhills as one companion to another. Duncan accepted, along with the use of a lighter, and they sat together smoking until the music achieved its final thundering climax.

In the blessed stillness after, Duncan stuck a finger in his ear, and said, "Wha's tha'?"

His new friend exhaled a thin stream of blue smoke. "Wha's tha's the tenth circle of hell. Two-hundred god-damn-drunken Irish folk singers on their way back from a Celtic music festival in fuckin' Switzerland!"

Somebody yelled, _Hit it, Harry!_ A banjo started twanking and a raspy voice started singing: _Stealin'…stealin'…pretty mama don't you tell on me, I'm a stealin' back to my same old used to be…"_

"Speakin' of Hell, you don't look so good, Mac. You know you've blood on your collar."

MacLeod felt the back of his head. His hair was stiff with dried blood. "I had an accident. Is there a washroom?"

"You mean one they haven't puked in?" The steward lit himself another Dunhill from the dog end of the one he was finishing. "Try up top. Take my advice and run before they break out the bagpipes."

He found Methos on the top deck, throwing up over the railing.

It was cold out in the open. The wind was picking up and the ferry rose and fell, seemingly in opposition to the steel gray waves rising and falling on either side. There was no hope that it wasn't going to storm.

Since no other passengers had chosen to come out in the open air, MacLeod had his choice of benches on which to sit. Eventually, Methos turned a green face to him.

"Kill me," he begged. "Please."

"I could throw you overboard and let you swim, but this is more fun."

"Bastard." Methos leaned over the railing again.

"I assume we're heading for Dover." The reply was inarticulate, but MacLeod took it for an affirmative. "You want to tell me why?"

Methos came and sank down on the bench beside him; MacLeod opened up his jacket, put his arm around his shoulders. "I told you, I need a sword, but you weren't listening."

"You had to kill me to get my attention."

"Yes. It was a little extreme, but I'm not at my best when I've just been blown to kingdom come."

"And what do we do after we get to Dover?"

"We're going to Wales."

"Wales it is," said MacLeod.

Methos burped and snuggled closer.

_In the west, the man on the mountain top felt the wind turn. It was starting to rain. He'd been waiting for it a long time…_

December 29, 2011


End file.
